1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medium identification device, an image forming apparatus, a method of identifying a medium, and a computer program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
Regarding an image forming apparatus that forms an image on a recording medium, known is a technique for automatically identifying a type of a recording medium to be used and changing a condition for an image forming process according to the identified type of the recording medium to perform optimum image formation on the recording medium to be used.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-182518 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-302885 disclose an image forming apparatus that identifies a type of a recording medium using a method of detecting surface smoothness of the recording medium by using an image of the recording medium captured with a CMOS sensor, and variably controls a developing condition, a transferring condition, or a fixing condition. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-55814 discloses an example for identifying the type of the recording medium, in which surface smoothness and reflectivity of the recording medium is obtained by detecting reflected light from the recording medium with a CMOS sensor, and a thickness of the recording medium is obtained by detecting transmitted light that transmits through the recording medium with the CMOS sensor.
However, types of recording media that can be used for image formation have been increasing in recent years, and there are many types that cannot be identified according to the related art. Thus, desired is a novel technique for identifying more variety of recording media.